


and the flames went higher

by callunavulgari



Series: Ring of Fire [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Car Sex, Diners, F/M, Hotels, M/M, Multi, Next Life fic, Reincarnation, Road Trips, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-25
Updated: 2013-04-25
Packaged: 2017-12-09 11:00:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/773457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/callunavulgari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For years, you played knight to Sora’s prince. You watched him marry, you saw his and Kairi’s children grow, and you played at being a friend. Just a friend, because he already had Riku, and Sora would never be yours, not in the way that two insignificant specks in the very depths of his heart wear your name, branded there for the sake of love, friendship, and something soul deep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and the flames went higher

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by some random comment on tumblr about how there needs to be more fic about the reunion between these three, and as much as I love Axel/Roxas, I also love Xion. Shipping or no shipping. Also I wanted an excuse to write next life fic featuring road trips.

You are seventeen years old and happily engaged to the girl of your dreams when you remember. She’s lovely, but that isn’t why you love her. You love how she laughs in the morning, when she wakes you with a kiss. The way she twirls her hair, glasses slipping down her nose when she’s struggling with some algorithm that’s surely going to change the world. You love the freckles dusting her cheeks and the way her heart pounds when she crawls into your lap.  
  
The two of you don’t have much—you’ve been alone for as long as you can remember and she—well, she doesn’t have anyone either.  
  
You’re too young, the well meaning old lady a few doors down tells you, her eyes milky with cataracts. Wait, she says, and you scoff at her, because the young know everything.  
  
So you save up for three months, every cent extra until your beloved remarks on the sharpness of your cheekbones and were you always that thin? But it’s worth it for the way she lights up when you give her the ring, simple and golden, but a perfect fit on her finger.  
  
You smile and kiss her laughter away.  
  
.  
  
Then you remember—two smiling faces against the backdrop of a red, red sunset. You remember fire in your hands and a darkness in your soul—the keyblade in your hand and Sora at your side, because in the end, if you couldn’t have them, you’d take the closest thing.  
  
And you did. For years, you played knight to Sora’s prince. You watched him marry, you saw his and Kairi’s children grow, and you played at being a friend. Just a friend, because he already had Riku, and Sora would never be yours, not in the way that two insignificant specks in the very depths of his heart wear your name, branded there for the sake of love, friendship, and something soul deep.  
  
You saved him, time and time again, for them. You went to war for him, so that he wouldn’t have to. It wouldn’t do to endanger them.  
  
You fought and you watched and you grew.  
  
And then you died with Sora looking down on you for a second time, only this time you could almost fancy they were another shade of blue.  
  
You remember a life that you only half lived, waiting for two souls that were already part of a whole.  
  
.  
  
In the end, you leave her.  
  
After all, what is this love compared to theirs?  
  
You’re a selfish person, you know. You always have been, they were the ones who made you so much more.  
  
Without them, you’re just another piece of driftwood in the sea.  
  
.  
  
She sticks with you for a time, because she may not understand, but she knows at the very least that there’s something wrong. You tell her that it isn’t her, it’s you, and she’s gracious about it in a way that you don’t deserve. She doesn’t deserve this, this half life that you’ve given her—loving you in spite of your own love fizzling out like a smothered flame.  
  
“That doesn’t matter,” she tells you with a sad smile, twisting the golden ring that she now wears on her pointer finger. “I can’t have you, but I would like to be your friend.”  
  
And then, later— “Please, Axel. You deserve to have a friend.”  
  
In the end, you leave—a kiss to her cheek and a long hug as she stands with you beside a moving truck.  
  
“Promise me you’ll take care of yourself,” she tells you, her eyes wet with unshed tears.  
  
You kiss her brow once more and make a promise that you aren’t sure you can keep.  
  
.  
  
You live three and a half years on your own, learning the ins and outs of paying your own bills and staying safe in sketchy neighborhoods. You get a job as a waiter at one of the many diners lining the highway, and don’t even care that the drifters who make the establishments their homes tip you less than the girls. Instead you watch out for them, even the ones who can handle themselves.  
  
You learned a lifetime ago that girls can be just as fierce as you, when Kairi stood at you and Sora’s side, blood lashed against her cheek and keyblade held at the ready—when Larxene took you apart with nothing more than words and Xion got you onto your back in under twenty seconds.  
  
It isn’t that they can’t handle themselves, far from it. Everyone needs a little backup from time to time.  
  
You pass the time taking classes, relearning your body—how to take a punch, how to use a sword, even how to shoot a gun. Your previous life was battle after battle, and you’ll be damned if you find them again and can’t protect them.  
  
.  
  
It’s Xion that you find first.  
  
She’s just as little in this world as she was in the last, hair cut short and glasses on her nose. Her hair isn’t the right shade—it’s lighter in this life, a golden brown where before it was dark as night. She’s like an off color photograph, the reds and greens and blues have been tampered with, but her face remains the same.  
  
You don’t know why you would have expected anything different—in this world your own hair is a dark, dark brown that you bleach once a month and dye a blinding red—your eyes more blue than green.  
  
When she sees you, she stops in the middle of the diner and stares for so long that your coworkers start slanting you puzzled looks over their trays. All the while, you just stand there and stare right back.  
  
She blinks slowly, and starts to smile.  
  
You grin back, set your tray aside, and spin her in a circle when she launches herself at you. You hide your tears against her neck and breathe in the smell of her—green tea and something vaguely floral—ignoring the coworkers that have begun to quietly ask you who she is.  
  
The entire diner is watching you and when you pull back, you could care less. You only have eyes for her.  
  
.  
  
She grew up in Fujisawa, she tells you.  
  
She has a family back home in Japan, a mother and a father, and even a younger sister. She tells you of daytrips to Enoshima Island and sweet shops that she liked to frequent.  
  
She didn’t remember until she was sixteen and after that, she’d gotten to the US as fast as she could.  
  
“How did you know that we’d be here?” you ask her. She laughs at you.  
  
“I didn’t,” she whispers, placing a kiss to your cheek. “I followed my heart and it led me to you.”  
  
.  
  
She stays with you in your tiny apartment, sprawled on your futon next to you. She snores faintly, not unlike a purring cat.  
  
You don’t kiss her at first—it’s enough to just have her beside you again.  
  
She pads around your apartment in socks, making fun of the knick-knacks you’ve collected over the years and wrinkling her nose at your disgusting kitchen. You turn in your two weeks at work, let your landlady know that at the end of the month you’ll be moving, and gather your savings.  
  
Xion’s car is a tiny, rundown little thing that she bought outside of Kansas—rusted and sputtering when you go faster than 45—but it runs, and that’s what matters.  
  
So at the end of the month, you pack what possessions you can into her trunk and pawn the rest.  
  
.  
  
It takes awhile to find Roxas, because while ‘follow your heart’ sounds good in theory, it takes a lot of trial and error in the long run.  
  
You and Xion live out of hotels, eat at diners, and do what work you can whenever you need the extra cash.  
  
By the third week the air conditioner has stopped working, and the two of you are almost constantly sweaty, the grime of extended car rides sticking to your skins. Sometimes you have to sleep in the car in shadowy little stretches of road that the cops don’t frequent.  
  
It’s on such a night that she kisses you, leaning across the center console and taking you by surprise. A lifetime ago she might have been shy about it, but a lifetime ago, you’d never gotten the chance to kiss her.  
  
She kisses like she’s trying to prove something to you, eyes open and narrowed in concentration or challenge or both. Awkwardly she climbs over the console, sliding into your lap like she was meant to be there, and licks into your mouth.  
  
It’s different, finally getting the chance to kiss her. You’re too careful at first, which frustrates her enough that after ten minutes she pulls back to glare at you, takes your hand, and shoves it down the front of her sweatpants.  
  
It’s easier after that, flicking your thumb over her clit as she moans into your mouth—touching her breasts reverently at first until she bites your lip and tells you, “Christ Axel, just squeeze them already, they aren’t going to bite you.”  
  
Eventually you both lose your pants and she procures a condom from god knows where, ripping the foil open and sliding it over your dick in one shaky motion, before she’s easing herself down onto you—her teeth digging into her lower lip and her hand on your shoulder.  
  
Neither of you are virgins, but the sex is awkward anyway.  
  
Later, you’ll laugh about it—about the terribly awkward, desperate sex that the two of you had on the side of the highway, but for now it’s just her flesh and yours, the sounds you make together, and the quiet of the night around you.  
  
.  
  
Sora and Roxas are identical twins in this life. Both have hair so dark it’s nearly black and skin tanned brown from the sun—but they still have the same blue eyes.  
  
They live in a suburb just outside of New Haven—younger than you and Xion. You’re pushing twenty-five and she just turned twenty-three, and the two of you have absolutely no business being outside of a high school on a Thursday afternoon in Connecticut, but that’s where you are.  
  
Sora (and it is Sora, you know it like you know the sky is blue and the grass is green) is laughing with a tall boy with blond hair, and for a moment, you are deeply jealous that you and Xion have been searching for so long when Riku and Sora were born at each other’s sides. The moment passes when Xion nudges you  between the ribs, rolling her eyes like she knows what you’re thinking.  
  
  
Roxas... Roxas is crouched beside his brother, eyes closed, back against the brick of the school building and you— you don’t know what to say. You don’t know what to do, your heart’s gone wild in your chest, the emotion clogging your throat. Your eyes feel wet and the two of you are getting weird looks from the students.  
  
You don’t blame them—you’ve been driving straight through for a day and a half. The two of you are dirty—Xion’s wrinkled denim shorts baring her hairy legs to the world, your shirt stained with ketchup. There’s dirt beneath your nails and you haven’t showered in the last four days, and none of that mattered before, but with him in your eyesight, you suddenly want a shower.  
  
Just when you’re thinking about turning around, heading back to the car until you’ve had a coffee and a shower, Roxas’ eyes open, blue as the afternoon sky. It takes a moment for him to look in your direction, but when he does, he goes still all over like a mouse that’s spotted a cat.  
  
Xion makes a quiet little noise at your side—something that might be a giggle or a sob, you don’t know, because checking would mean looking away from blue eyes that you haven’t seen since before you had a heart.  
  
After a moment, Roxas starts to get to his feet—slow, too slow—his backpack scraping against the brick. You feel a sudden surge of terror—that he doesn’t remember either of you, that he’s too young to remember. After all, you remembered when you were seventeen, Xion when she was sixteen—what if he’s fourteen years old and thinks the two of you are just creepy adults pedoing it up at the local high school.  
  
Your breath hitches. Your cheeks feel wet. You blink, and by the time you open your eyes again, he’s running towards you.  
  
He tackles the two of you back onto the grass when he reaches you, one of his legs locked around your calf and his arms wrapped around both of your waists. His face is buried in your armpit, and you don’t have the time to warn him of the stink before he’s pulled his face away with a grimace.  
  
“God, you two stink,” are the first words that Roxas ever says to you.  
  
Xion laughs wetly. “Oh, please tell us that you’re legal,” she half laughs, half sobs.  
  
“In this state,” he answers after a moment. You snort.  
  
“And what’s the age of consent in this state?” you ask dryly.  
  
He shifts uncomfortably against your hip, and the three of you should probably get up before someone calls security, but at the moment, you really don’t care. “Sixteen,” he finally answers, licking his lips. On the other side of him, you hear Xion groan.  
  
You laugh, shaky, and put your hand over your heart—feel it thump wildly against your palm.  
  
“We’ll make it work,” you tell them.


End file.
